Monday, February 27, 2006

SiRF Introduces Location Based Services Platform

SiRF Technology Holdings Inc. plans to release a software platform for phone operators later this year that it hopes will accelerate the use of location-based services in mobile phones, the company's president and CEO Michael Canning said.

SiRF sells chips and software for use in consumer Global Positioning System (GPS) products. It thinks 60% of mobile phones will include GPS capabilities in the next three years or so, but a key challenge is getting operators to offer location-based services to their subscribers.

To help drive the market, SiRF is creating a platform on which third-party developers can write applications for operators.

This is a great idea. Let creative minds determine what useful products/applications can be generated from this. Case is point Google Maps. If you have a valuable platform, let visionaries determine what the market will find useful with it.

The platform will not be dependent on a particular cellular technology and will work with Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and other standards, Canning said